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The How and Why of Using a Digital Camera

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Photographers think differently about an object or scene regarding the way it stands. They perceive it different than we would. They look at the highlights and shadows of an image. They dig into the substance of what the image looks like to them. They can see the softness of the image or even its sharpness. They can tell the difference between one tone and another.

Using your digital camera is simply a matter of knowing how and when to use the features you have on the digital camera. This includes the focus, exposure controls, and the flash. And learning to use these features is so easy. It is just a matter of taking the time. Before you know it you’ll be taking breath-taking pictures that will be the envy of your friends. You’ll be getting close-ups, freeze the action when you want it, and even take in the beauty of a rainbow, sunset, sunrise, or other breath-taking scenes.

The first things you need to look into are the camera controls. If you have a good digital camera, you will find various controls that will allow you to control the way your image will look when saved. They do this by controlling how much light and motion goes through the lens. Although you may find many to have automatic settings, they also allow for those settings to be overridden. No matter whether you use the automatic controls or do it manually, the final result these controls can affect your image. Here are the various controls and how to use them:

• Image quality and size: When taking pictures, the quality and size of an image matters. It also depends on the number of pixels in the image itself and the way the image is stored. There are ways to control images: compression and size. Compression is when you take an image and reduce it to a smaller size so as to accommodate better space. Most files that are compressed in this matter are saved in JPEG formats. The other thing to look at is image size. Besides compressing or shrinking the image, cameras will let you choose the size of the image. Many digital cameras offer images sizes of 640 x 480 or 1600 x 1200.
• Shutter control: If you want to control how light and motion enter a lens, you need to control the speed of the shutter. The shutter controls how much light enters the camera to strike the image sensor. The amount of time the shutter opens and closes determines the amount of exposure of the image the camera picks up. Also, the shutter also controls the motion that is captured in an image. This is why you have to know shutter speed so you can make the adjustments accordingly. In this case, the longer the shutter stays open, the more likely the moving object will appear blurred.
• The Aperture: If you are not familiar with it, the aperture is a small hole in the center of the lens that controls how much light enters through the lens. If the aperture is opened to far, too much light will enter causing a washed out look to the image. Another thing the aperture controls is sharpness. The smaller the aperture is the greater the area of a scene that will be sharp. So you have a compromise here. You can set the aperture at the right size and therefore will have beautiful pictures that have the right amount of brightness and sharpness.
• Exposure modes: In most digital cameras you have the choice of more than one type of exposure. If you use the fully automatic mode, the exposure is already set. If you are not going to use the automatic feature, your other choices are programmed mode, aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual mode.
o Programmed mode – You select the type of situations you object or scene will be. In other words will your object be a person or a landscape of some type.
o Aperture priority mode – You select the aperture you need for the amount of light you want and sharpness to.
o Shutter priority mode – This mode lets you select the shutter speed so you can decide what type of image you want to see.
o Manual mode – This mode lets you select both shutter speed and aperture.

Next Page: Learning to Adjust for Sharpness and Exposure

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